Floodlight fixtures are used in a variety of industrial and commercial applications. Typcially, such fixtures are made with fixed reflectors, either of a single section or multiple sections arranged to provide the desired spread of light from the lamp used as the light source for each individual application of the floodlight. This results in a fixed design for applications where the orientation of the luminaire in which the reflector system is placed, the hight of the mounting of the fixture, and the space between different fixtures is pre-established. If fixtures are placed more closely together or at heights differing from the optimum designed position, non-uniform illumination of the area below the floodlight results, producing shadows, light and dark stripes of illumination and the like.
If a floodlight fixture is to be designed for a non-standard mounting arrangement, it typically has been necessary to custom design the reflector sections to provide the proper spread of light. This is expensive and time consuming. Even so, if the conditions at installation vary from the design parameters of the reflector, unwanted shadows and bright spots still may occur.
An effort to provide a flexible floodlight fixture is disclosed in the Moore U.S. Pat. No. 3,610,915. This patent discloses a luminaire for housing an adjustable floodlight. A wibdow area is located in the housing intermediate its end walls, and a single reflector unit is mounted behind the lamp. This reflector is pivoted to direct the reflected light from the lamp to a desired area beneath the housing. The width of the refleced beam is not varied, although in the extreme positions, a portion of the reflected light impinges upon the solid walls of the housing. Thus, the beam existing from the housing is narrower when this occurs. This results in a reduced amount of light exiting form the housing, however, since some of the reflected light is simply dumped into the opaque or non-transparent side of the housing.
A different approach is disclosed in the Moore U.S. Pat. No. 3,001,061. This patent is directed to a floodlight reflector which has a provision for changing the width of the reflector beam. In Moore, the reflector is made of a relatively large number of segmented reflector sections, which are bent to provide the desired reflected beam. Segments of different lengths, bent to different curvatures, may be used to change the beam width. It is necessary to insert different segments individually if the beam width is to be changed. As a result, this reflector has the beam width adjusted at the time of manufacturer; and it is not intended to be thereafter adjusted at the place of use.
The McReynolds U.S. Pat. No. 4,028,542 discloses a faceted parabolic reflector system with two side reflector sections, which may be repositioned or positioned at the place of manufacture to selected the beam width of the luminaire in which they are used. The sections are not intended to be pivoted, and different sets of mounting holes are provided in the sides of the housing corresponding to different beam width angles to be produced by the fixture.
The Figueroa U.S. Pat. No. 4,499,529 is directed to a florescent light fixture which is capable of adjustment to vary the effective illumination area beneath the fixture. This patent discloses a reflector system which has a number of individually tiltable reflector sections on each side of an elongated light source to change the width of the illumination area beneath the reflector. The reflector sections are not ganged together, but are individually tiltable about the longitudinal axes parallel to the axis of the bulb used in the fixture. A considerable amount of trial and error adjustment is necessary to provide uniform illumination beneath the fixture.
Other attempts have been made to provide light fixtures which are pivoting reflector to vary the direction of the light beam from the fixture. Two such fixtures used for automobile headlights are shown in the Kay U.S. Pat. No. 1,902,860 and Bostic U.S. Pat. No. 2,064,880. In both of these patents, a reflector section is pivoted about an axis to two or more different positions to change the direction of the beam from the automobile headlight. A single reflector section pivoted through a single actuating lever is used in both cases.
It is desirable to provide a floodlight which is capable of producing a variable beam over a relatively wide angular range, which also is simple to construct and which readily may be adjusted either at the factory or at the point of use.